It was a brisk Monday evening. Matt and I had been walking around the city for an hour. The sun was fading and lights were beginning to glow from shop windows in every nook and cranny of the West Village. I was carrying my laptop in a bag over my shoulder and there was a cold slush coating the ground.
We stepped into McNulty’s Coffee and Tea Company on Christopher Street. The bronzed wood shop was filled with burlap sacks, glass containers of loose tea, and coffee beans that were so fresh they shone. It smelled thickly of cocoa and coffee. The scent was so rich that the flick of a finger could indent the air.
“You must love to come into work everyday,” said Matt to the man behind the counter, inhaling. “It smells so good.”
The coffee-purveyor smiled as he ground us a pound of “Java Mountain Supreme.”
“We do love it, but not because of the scent. We just can’t smell it anymore,” he said with a quiet laugh. “You get used to anything. One week here and the smell is gone.”
“Oh, sad.”
We left and took a turn through the nutty yellow rounds piled on the shelves and behind the counter of Murray’s Cheese Shop on Bleecker Street. I bought some Marcona almonds in honey and yogurt from Iceland, nestling them between the books in my bag.
Outside and around the corner, a man in a thick brown coat was wrapping a pine tree in mesh for a couple to take home. We walked by the forest-like stack of dark trees leaning against a makeshift wooden fence, some festooned with red ribbons.
I took a deep breath. A new scent.
“Can you smell that?” Matt asked, sticking his face near the pile of pine.
“Yes,” I said, surprised by the sudden and new. “It’s Christmas.”
Later that night I sat in the subway on my way back to Brooklyn. The brown paper parcel of coffee from McNulty’s was in the bag between my feet. I was trying to read my book but I couldn’t concentrate. I was too distracted by the scent of coffee.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Brooklyn Food Group; Take Four
We had the fourth meeting of our supper club, The Brooklyn Food Group, the weekend before Thanksgiving.
The days before were filled with flour and yeast. Dough rose, rested, relaxed on my windowsill and kitchen table. Sugar spilled on the floor and cornmeal coated my clothes; the oven clanked constantly. Cream scalded and tempered eggs faded to pale yellow. Whisks were plentiful. And as I sat on the subway, on my hour-long commute to school the day before the event, I couldn’t shake the scent of butter.
Four days later I would stand barefoot in my mom’s kitchen in Boston, relaxed and sleepy as I casually basted turkey and slowly rolled pie dough. Thanksgiving cooking didn’t carry such a sense of urgency.
But that night—the Saturday of the supper club—my friend Ben and I spent many frenetic hours sautéing and frying in the small confines of a sweaty Brooklyn kitchen. Twenty-three guests sat—drinking, laughing, eating—at two long tables nearby; we fed them six courses.
Ben, who is now a line chef at a wonderful restaurant on the Upper West Side, outdid himself with the savory courses.
There was a nutty beige cauliflower soup with raisins agrodolce; an autumnal salad studded with purple cauliflower, farmers market apples, pumpkin vinaigrette and a knobby stack of sautéed mushrooms.
There were basil pancakes: deep green, tender, and balanced on an orange puree of chile-pumpkin. They were topped with pickled fennel and reduced orange juice syrup. And for Ben’s final course, there were freshly made cardamom noodles with a slow-roasted lamb ragu.
My contribution—aside from the baskets of Italian bread and sea-salt focaccia, which had oozed the sweet and steamy scent of “fresh baked” into my apartment all morning—was dessert.
Pumpkin Crème Brulee; milky bronze and peppered with spice. I melted the sugar sprinkled over the custards with a small blow torch. It formed a crunchy, sweet skin to be cracked with a dessert spoon for the first bite.
It was a successful night. When I got home I collapsed into bed and have perhaps never slept so well in my life.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Fall?
The tree outside my apartment’s kitchen window is finally beginning to change color. There are streaks of yellow and a hint of red peaking through the stubborn summer green.
I noticed this yesterday morning when my computer screen became blurry with frustration and I decided to bake cookies instead. I put my Kitchenaid mixer on the windowsill and was surprised by the sudden color outside and surprised, again, by the sweet and salty smell of butter as it churned.
The night before a cold rain had pattered on my umbrella and my friend Ben made a meal of homemade pasta fragrant with cardamom and tossed with a handful of sautéed mushrooms, which tasted like October.
I suppose I knew that summer had ended. But it wasn’t until later yesterday afternoon, when I walked through the Grand Army Plaza farmers market on my way to Prospect Park and saw the piles of pumpkins and crates of knobby gourds spilling out of the stalls, that I realized that it is indeed autumn. All I wanted was apple pie.
So this afternoon I was sitting at my desk, which is covered in mounds of papers and books and rambling lists of things that I need to do, and felt overwhelmed with things to write and articles to read and interviews to schedule. So I decided to go to the grocery store. And then I decided to cook. I’m a procrastinator. What.
I didn’t make an apple pie. But it was something warm and burnished and felt like fall: vegetable and barley soup topped with a soft-poached egg.
Now, go back to work Molly.
Vegetable Barley Soup with Poached Egg
inspired by Gourmet magazine, November 2007
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon chopped thyme
1 can diced tomatoes
1 qt vegetable stock
3/4 cup barley
6 cups spinach
1 tablespoon white vinegar
4 eggs, or one per serving
-Cook onion and garlic with a half teaspoon of salt in oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir every so often until pale golden, 10 minutes.
-Discard stems of mushrooms and slice thinly. Add mushrooms and thyme to onions and cook until soft, 5 minutes.
-Stir in tomatoes with their juice, stock, barley, and a half teaspoon of salt and pepper each. Simmer, covered, for 15 to 20 minutes.
-Add spinach, stir till wilted, 1 minute. Season to taste.
-Meanwhile, bring a saucepan of water to simmer with a tablespoon of vinegar.
-Break one egg at a time into separate cups, and then slide into the water, one at a time. Poach until whites are firm, 2 - 3 minutes. Transfer to paper towel, and then serve on soup.
I noticed this yesterday morning when my computer screen became blurry with frustration and I decided to bake cookies instead. I put my Kitchenaid mixer on the windowsill and was surprised by the sudden color outside and surprised, again, by the sweet and salty smell of butter as it churned.
The night before a cold rain had pattered on my umbrella and my friend Ben made a meal of homemade pasta fragrant with cardamom and tossed with a handful of sautéed mushrooms, which tasted like October.
I suppose I knew that summer had ended. But it wasn’t until later yesterday afternoon, when I walked through the Grand Army Plaza farmers market on my way to Prospect Park and saw the piles of pumpkins and crates of knobby gourds spilling out of the stalls, that I realized that it is indeed autumn. All I wanted was apple pie.
So this afternoon I was sitting at my desk, which is covered in mounds of papers and books and rambling lists of things that I need to do, and felt overwhelmed with things to write and articles to read and interviews to schedule. So I decided to go to the grocery store. And then I decided to cook. I’m a procrastinator. What.
I didn’t make an apple pie. But it was something warm and burnished and felt like fall: vegetable and barley soup topped with a soft-poached egg.
Now, go back to work Molly.
Vegetable Barley Soup with Poached Egg
inspired by Gourmet magazine, November 2007
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon chopped thyme
1 can diced tomatoes
1 qt vegetable stock
3/4 cup barley
6 cups spinach
1 tablespoon white vinegar
4 eggs, or one per serving
-Cook onion and garlic with a half teaspoon of salt in oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir every so often until pale golden, 10 minutes.
-Discard stems of mushrooms and slice thinly. Add mushrooms and thyme to onions and cook until soft, 5 minutes.
-Stir in tomatoes with their juice, stock, barley, and a half teaspoon of salt and pepper each. Simmer, covered, for 15 to 20 minutes.
-Add spinach, stir till wilted, 1 minute. Season to taste.
-Meanwhile, bring a saucepan of water to simmer with a tablespoon of vinegar.
-Break one egg at a time into separate cups, and then slide into the water, one at a time. Poach until whites are firm, 2 - 3 minutes. Transfer to paper towel, and then serve on soup.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Holding my nose
So I haven’t cooked for myself in over a month. Thank you, graduate school.
The lack of activity in my kitchen, however, has not stopped my olfactory neurons from dancing around in my head. More scent has returned in the last two months than in the last two years combined.
And, frankly, it’s driving me insane.
It feels at times like my nose is going haywire. I’m hit by a smell—often new, sometimes indefinable—and I can’t concentrate. There are moments when I can hardly think beyond the thick, malodorous stench of a simple can of cat food.
--
A whiff of cologne on the street near my apartment stopped me in my tracks.
I opened a stiff old book at the library and its mildewed pungency sent shivers down my spine.
I sat near the water off of Hunts Point in the south Bronx, and found myself breathing through my mouth because the air smelled so briny that I felt sick.
The only thing I retained from a recent lecture on the ethics of journalism is the shower-fresh deodorant of the man next to me.
And just last night I stared at the stick of butter in my hand—still cold and in its wrapper—not believing that anything could so reek of salt and sweet cream.
--
My sense of smell is by no means fully back. Many things continue to exist purely in the textural and visual. But the world is certainly coloring itself in a different, thicker way.
And I’ve come to the conclusion that this is wholly due to my mood.
It’s been clear to me since the beginning of this whole loss-of-smell thing that the re-growth of my damaged olfactory neuron was strongly related to my memory and experience. The smells that returned first had everything to do with moments of happiness. The bad have stayed away or just slowly eked their way back into my consciousness.
And, right now, I’m happier. School is challenging. My apartment has large windows and a cat that only yowls when extremely grumpy. Fall is seeping back into the world and the newspaper’s pages crinkle just so.
If it means that sometimes I have to breathe only out of my mouth—like this afternoon, when I sat on a sunny bench in Union Square trying to read but couldn’t process anything besides the spicy scent of the pasta a woman was eating nearby—I’m OK with that. It’s rather exciting, actually.
The lack of activity in my kitchen, however, has not stopped my olfactory neurons from dancing around in my head. More scent has returned in the last two months than in the last two years combined.
And, frankly, it’s driving me insane.
It feels at times like my nose is going haywire. I’m hit by a smell—often new, sometimes indefinable—and I can’t concentrate. There are moments when I can hardly think beyond the thick, malodorous stench of a simple can of cat food.
--
A whiff of cologne on the street near my apartment stopped me in my tracks.
I opened a stiff old book at the library and its mildewed pungency sent shivers down my spine.
I sat near the water off of Hunts Point in the south Bronx, and found myself breathing through my mouth because the air smelled so briny that I felt sick.
The only thing I retained from a recent lecture on the ethics of journalism is the shower-fresh deodorant of the man next to me.
And just last night I stared at the stick of butter in my hand—still cold and in its wrapper—not believing that anything could so reek of salt and sweet cream.
--
My sense of smell is by no means fully back. Many things continue to exist purely in the textural and visual. But the world is certainly coloring itself in a different, thicker way.
And I’ve come to the conclusion that this is wholly due to my mood.
It’s been clear to me since the beginning of this whole loss-of-smell thing that the re-growth of my damaged olfactory neuron was strongly related to my memory and experience. The smells that returned first had everything to do with moments of happiness. The bad have stayed away or just slowly eked their way back into my consciousness.
And, right now, I’m happier. School is challenging. My apartment has large windows and a cat that only yowls when extremely grumpy. Fall is seeping back into the world and the newspaper’s pages crinkle just so.
If it means that sometimes I have to breathe only out of my mouth—like this afternoon, when I sat on a sunny bench in Union Square trying to read but couldn’t process anything besides the spicy scent of the pasta a woman was eating nearby—I’m OK with that. It’s rather exciting, actually.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
All That
I stood at the corner of Fulton and Broadway early yesterday morning. It was dark and drizzly; my black sandals were speckled with mud from an unsuspecting puddle. Water dripped off the stone porch of St. Paul’s Chapel behind me.
I was there to cover a memorial service for the sixth anniversary of 9/11. St. Paul’s Chapel—just a block from Ground Zero and an hour before the ringing of church bells echoed in memory of the first plane crash—was a solemn space. A sense of quiet reflection pervaded the crowds walking past me on the street.
I waited on the sidewalk for a friend from graduate school, taking a moment to collect myself before I began this reporting assignment, and ate an apple. It was one that I bought from the Brooklyn farmer’s market last weekend, crisp and cool with a gnarly stem.
And as I ate—watching the neon-vested crossing guard wave at a little boy across the street, the women with shiny hair and tipsy black heels and the men in business suits on blackberries walk by—I remembered a line from a piece that Joan Didion wrote when, at age thirty, she decided to leave New York for L.A. She speaks about her early days in the city, just a few years after college, when she was late to meet someone but bought a peach on Lexington Avenue and stopped to eat it on the corner.
I could taste the peach and feel the soft air blowing from a subway grating on my legs and I could smell lilac and garbage and expensive perfume and I knew that it would cost something sooner or later—because I did not belong there, did not come from there—but when you are twenty-two or twenty-three, you figure that later you will have a high emotional balance, and be able to pay whatever it costs.
That essay—Goodbye to All That—lodged itself in my mind a long time ago. Joan Didion, as I have written before, is a favorite.
But right then—in front of the chapel that gave shelter to dust-covered passersby as they ran from the collapsing towers six years ago—that image of a young woman eating a peach, struck by the knowledge that there is a cost to life in New York City, resonated sharply.
Perhaps it was because, now one month into an intense graduate program of journalism, I am having more trouble than usual getting Didion out of my head. Perhaps it was because the effects of grief surrounded me, putting everything in broader focus. Or, perhaps, it was simply because I was there, on the street, eating an apple.
But, I stood there for a few minutes, waiting to begin reporting, and nothing tasted more apple than that apple, and nothing felt more New York than that damp New York sidewalk.
I was there to cover a memorial service for the sixth anniversary of 9/11. St. Paul’s Chapel—just a block from Ground Zero and an hour before the ringing of church bells echoed in memory of the first plane crash—was a solemn space. A sense of quiet reflection pervaded the crowds walking past me on the street.
I waited on the sidewalk for a friend from graduate school, taking a moment to collect myself before I began this reporting assignment, and ate an apple. It was one that I bought from the Brooklyn farmer’s market last weekend, crisp and cool with a gnarly stem.
And as I ate—watching the neon-vested crossing guard wave at a little boy across the street, the women with shiny hair and tipsy black heels and the men in business suits on blackberries walk by—I remembered a line from a piece that Joan Didion wrote when, at age thirty, she decided to leave New York for L.A. She speaks about her early days in the city, just a few years after college, when she was late to meet someone but bought a peach on Lexington Avenue and stopped to eat it on the corner.
I could taste the peach and feel the soft air blowing from a subway grating on my legs and I could smell lilac and garbage and expensive perfume and I knew that it would cost something sooner or later—because I did not belong there, did not come from there—but when you are twenty-two or twenty-three, you figure that later you will have a high emotional balance, and be able to pay whatever it costs.
That essay—Goodbye to All That—lodged itself in my mind a long time ago. Joan Didion, as I have written before, is a favorite.
But right then—in front of the chapel that gave shelter to dust-covered passersby as they ran from the collapsing towers six years ago—that image of a young woman eating a peach, struck by the knowledge that there is a cost to life in New York City, resonated sharply.
Perhaps it was because, now one month into an intense graduate program of journalism, I am having more trouble than usual getting Didion out of my head. Perhaps it was because the effects of grief surrounded me, putting everything in broader focus. Or, perhaps, it was simply because I was there, on the street, eating an apple.
But, I stood there for a few minutes, waiting to begin reporting, and nothing tasted more apple than that apple, and nothing felt more New York than that damp New York sidewalk.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Cookie, Anyone?
Driving down a back road in Martha's Vineyard with my mom, windows open, a hazy summer afternoon...
"What's that smell?" I asked, suddenly hit by a waft of buttery sweet. "Is it some kind of baked good? Mmm ... like cake, just coming out of the oven. Kinda nutty, too. Almond biscotti!?!"
My mom looked at me oddly.
"Um, no Molly. That's skunk."
"Oh."
"What's that smell?" I asked, suddenly hit by a waft of buttery sweet. "Is it some kind of baked good? Mmm ... like cake, just coming out of the oven. Kinda nutty, too. Almond biscotti!?!"
My mom looked at me oddly.
"Um, no Molly. That's skunk."
"Oh."
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Apartment; Pizza
I have spent a lot of time lying on my back, on the floor of my apartment in the last few days. My new apartment. My new, sunny apartment that, after a long, sweaty day hauling boxes and bed frames up and down its stairs, has wreaked havoc on my back.
But I am here now. And lying on the (new, wooden) floor feels best. Right next to the bright red wall which Adrienne, my new roommate, painted while I sat nearby and provided moral support, wine, and select passages from a Robert Moses biography, my current 1200 page challenge. (The wall matches my red kitchenaid mixer perfectly, which happened on purpose.)
I have relocated from Park Slope to Prospect Heights in Brooklyn. Not too far away, but closer to an express train that will zip me away to grad school (beginning in just about two weeks!) with far greater ease.
Cooking has yet to happen here. But late on Saturday night, after a long and sweaty day lugging dressers and bed frames up and down multiple sets of stairs, Adrienne and I sat in our new living room, surrounded by suitcases and boxes—she in a pink armchair and I on my rolling desk chair—and fashioned a table from some (of my many) boxes of books. I had blown through the farmer’s market early that morning to pick up some initial groceries for the new place and bought a pizza-like concoction – rosemary, roasted garlic, caramelized onions and blue cheese on a freshly baked round of bread – from a slim, tanned man with a delightful French accent. It came out in all its crusty, yeasty glory around 9pm, alongside a few frosty bottles of Brooklyn Brewery Brown Ale. I was loopy with exhaustion, covered in bruises and bumps, already stiff and sore, and could not have been happier. The chocolate ice cream that followed, spoons straight in the container, also helped.
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